Echoes of the Past
by MystGuardian
Summary: Yes, I borrowed the name from an excellent series of hidden object games. In any case, the real summary contains spoilers for Avengers: Endgame and is inside. Rated T to be safe.
1. Prologue

**Summary: After going back in time to return the infinity stones and deciding to stay with Peggy, Steve has created an alternate reality. This is my take on what happened in that reality. It will basically follow various of the movies, but with some changes. Two of these changes include Steve and Peggy's two children: Natasha Sarah Rogers (Sarah) is three years younger than Tony Stark and is two years older than her brother, James Anthony Rogers (Jamie). Both of these children inherited their father's super soldier serum.**

**1980, Stark Residence**

Everyone fell to the floor as the explosion rocked the building. Years of training and battle caused Steve to instantly jump to his feet and carefully analyze the situation. Howard Stark was picking himself up and helping his wife Maria up as well. Peggy was sitting on the floor carefully checking Jamie for injuries.

"Howard?" Steve asked.

"It came from the lab." The words had barely left Howard's mouth before Steve was running for the basement. He got down there in record time to a sight that made his heart stop. The lab was completely destroyed and Tony (who thankfully seemed to be uninjured) was sitting on the floor, cradling Sarah's limp body in his arms.

"U-uncle Steve!" Tony cried on seeing him.

"What happened?" Steve urgently asked as he knelt beside the children, checking Sarah's weak pulse.

"I told her not to touch it!" Tony exclaimed, tears streaming down his face. Steve put a hand on his shoulder.

"I know. Were you hurt?" Tony shook his head, swallowing hard.

"I was on the other side of the door."

"Good thing I had those reinforced." Howard remarked as he walked in. He shoved a pile of smoking equipment off of a table and turned back to Steve. "Put her here."

Steve carefully picked Sarah up and carried her to the table, gently resting her on it. Tony nervously followed, wringing his hands.

"Will she be okay?" He hesitantly asked.

"Probably, she's a tough one." Howard's tone was a little too light to be natural, but Steve didn't comment on it. "What did she touch?"

"That thing." Tony said, pointing at one machine in particular. "It made this big sphere of glowing light and she touched it and it exploded." Howard and Steve exchanged a worried glance.

"What does it do?" Steve asked.

"I'm not sure yet." Howard uneasily replied. "It's a piece of strange tech that S.H.I.E.L.D. found and asked me to analyze."

"What's going to happen to Sarah?"

"I'm afraid I don't know that either." Howard paused for a moment, thinking. "I have another, smaller lab upstairs. Bring her up there and I'll take a look at things, see what I can determine."

"Fine, but you get to explain this to Peggy and Maria." Steve told him, scooping the tiny, unresponsive figure up into his arms.

**A/N Consider this fair warning. This fanfic will be updated when I have inspiration. I hope to update at _least_ once a week, but no promises. And yes, Sarah has other powers now. I'm not going to try to list them all here as I'm still exploring them myself, but flight is definitely one of them. And the cover photo is what Sarah looks like.  
**


	2. Iron Man

**2008, Stark Residence**

Tony grinned as his car rolled into the driveway and he saw who was waiting for him. Steve helped him out of the car, looking him up and down for injuries besides the arm in a sling. Peggy was waiting, arms crossly folded over her chest and a glare frozen onto her face. Jamie just looked slightly exasperated and mostly amused.

"You got yourself blown up." Jamie remarked.

"I did." Tony confirmed, pulling his shirt open enough to show the arc reactor in his chest. That helped to lessen the glare on Peggy's face somewhat.

"Are you alright?" She wearily asked.

"I'll be fine." He replied, brushing it off.

"Let's get inside." Steve suggested, leading the way. He never strayed too far from Tony's side, though, always ready to catch him if he should stumble. Looking back on his life, Tony realized that it had always been that way. Steve had always been his uncle, but sometimes he also became a best friend, an older brother, or even a father figure.

Of course, that had all made sense when he'd finally been deemed old enough to know the truth. It had been quite the shock when Steve had sat down with him and explained that he was from an alternate future. Of course Tony had tried to wheedle information out of him - like whether he became more famous and successful than his father - but Steve had refused.

"Why didn't you warn me?" Tony asked; there was no judgement in his tone, only curiosity. They settled onto the couches in the living room, Jamie, sprawled on the couch opposite from them, perked up to hear the answer as Peggy went into the kitchen to procure refreshments. Steve seemed to consider before making his response.

"This is the start of something big. Something that has to happen, whether we like the details of _how_ it happened or not." He seemed to be weighing each word very carefully. He was always like that when discussing the future. Tony understood, it couldn't be easy, knowing that one slip up might bring about a far darker future than what he'd come from. It was a lot of pressure for one person, and, (though he'd never admit it to anyone except _maybe_ Sarah) Tony was glad that it was Steve here. He couldn't think of anyone else who would be able to handle it.

Wanting to derail this train of thought before he got a headache, Tony asked the first question that came to mind. "Where's Sarah? Another super secret S.H.I.E.L.D. mission?" Steve's face fell and Jamie quickly replied.

"No, she's on a personal mission." Tony understood that immediately. For the Rogers' family, a personal mission meant trying to find Bucky Barnes. Tony had been told about Steve's best friend who had been brainwashed and turned into an assassin by Hydra. However, every time one of the Roger's seemed to be closing in on either Hydra or the Winter Soldier, they disappeared again and it could be several years before another lead appeared.

"We'll find him." Tony reassured his friends as Peggy reemerged with snacks and drinks.

"I know." Steve sighed. "I just worry what they'll have done to him by then."

"At least he didn't kill my parents this time." Tony tried to cheer him up. It had been very difficult for Steve to tell him that part as they'd apparently had some sort of fight about it in the future. Tony didn't really understand it, he just felt sorry for this Bucky. Of course, that was easy to say since Bucky had been prevented from killing his parents and the two had died of perfectly natural causes. Steve actually laughed a little at Tony's response: it had evidently been long enough that he'd mostly healed from that.

"True." He admitted.

"So what happens next?" Peggy asked. "Besides me finally getting a chance to give Tony a proper chewing out for his carelessness."

"I was not careless!" Tony indignantly exclaimed. "I'd like to have seen _you_ do better."

"In any case." Steve quickly intervened as Peggy bristled. "That's all in the past. What happens next is we enjoy the time we have together..."

"Since we never know when one of us might get themselves blown up." Jamie cheerfully interrupted. Steve sighed and put his head in his hands.

* * *

Sarah was sitting on the steps of Tony's home when he arrived after the press conference.

"Sure took you long enough." He told her as he got out of the car. "Everyone else has already been to see me and chew me out."

"I'm sure that was mostly Mom." Sarah replied, standing and accepting his hug.

"Of course. How was your mission?" He added in a serious tone. She sighed.

"Same as always. Trail ran cold and it'll be ages before we find another lead. Even Dad's knowledge of a possible future isn't helping that much."

"What he shares, that is." Tony remarked, pulling open his shirt enough for her to see his arc reactor.

"You're not really upset about that." Sarah pointed out, tapping his arc reactor. He chuckled - she'd always been _way_ too perceptive.

"No, I'm not. And I made sure he knew that."

"Good, he's still comparing your relationship to the one he had with the Tony Stark of his future."

"I'm glad ours seems to be better." Tony admitted.

"I am to." Sarah's smile suddenly turned mischievous. "Otherwise I might not be able to know you well enough to have predicted ahead of time that you'd tell the world that you're Iron Man." Tony laughed.

"Well, what would you have done?" He asked. Sarah quirked an eyebrow.

"I guess we'll never know, will we?" This prompted Tony to try to guess.

"I bet you wouldn't have even gone to the press conference. You _hate_ attention." He suggested, tapping his chin thoughtfully.

"You're probably right." Sarah reluctantly admitted. "Seriously though, what are you going to do next?"

"Everyone keeps asking that." Tony huffed. But he stopped to give it serious consideration at the look on her face. "I'm not sure. I'll just take whatever comes and roll with it."

"Like what's waiting in your living room?" She asked, opening the front door and walking in before he could question her. Sighing and quietly cursing, he followed. She was standing by the windows, next to a man who seemed vaguely familiar, but Tony was tired and the stranger had his back turned.

"And you are?" He asked.

"Nick Fury, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.; I'm here to talk to you about the Avengers Initiative.


	3. Iron Man 2 & Thor

**2010, S.H.I.E.L.D. Base**

Sarah was waiting for Tony when he got out of the briefing with Fury. They walked out in silence together and had made it to their favorite diner and ordered before Tony finally broke the silence.

"Where was everybody?"

"Jamie and I had S.H.I.E.L.D. missions. And you know Mom dragged Dad off on a vacation."

"I guess." Tony tiredly replied, fingering a salt shaker absent-mindedly.

"You're not actually mad at us, are you?" Sarah questioned.

"No. I mean, none of you came to my birthday party." He pretended to glare at her. Her unwavering gaze showed that she didn't buy it.

"You know none of us knew you were dying. That's what you get for trying to keep things to yourself."

"What about Uncle Steve? He didn't know?"

"He was still in the ice and this incident apparently never came up. He feels terrible about it; but you know you two weren't as close in his reality as you are in this one."

"True." That cheered Tony up some. "Hey, where's Jamie?" He added.

"He and Coulson got called to New Mexico."

* * *

New Mexico

Jamie waited with Coulson as they watched Thor fall to his knees in grief. Jamie wondered what it was like; being able to wield Mjolnir most of your life until suddenly that ability was stripped from you.

"That was intense." Coulson's voice snapped him out of his reverie.

"What are we going to do with him?" Jamie asked.

"Detain and question him. I want to know exactly who he is and where he came from." Coulson replied, moving away and giving orders into his walkie-talkie.

"Not sure you _actually_ want to know that." Jamie muttered under his breath as he went to find Barton.

"Hey Carter." The archer greeted as he caught sight of the man.

"Hey Barton." Jamie returned, a little heavily.

"Something bothering you?" Barton asked. Jamie sighed, wishing he could just tell the marksman everything.

"Something about this whole thing feels… off." He decided to say. Barton nodded knowingly.

"I agree completely."

"Is that why you didn't want to shoot him?" Jamie wondered.

"I've only ever felt like that once before." Barton told him. "And I made the right call with Romanoff, didn't I?" Jamie nodded.

"She's one of us now. I don't know what we'd do without her." He honestly replied. Barton nodded in agreement.

"Who knows," He added in a light tone. "Maybe this big guy will end up being one of us too." Jamie chuckled with him, finding genuine amusement in the fact that Barton had no idea just how right he was.

**A/N A short chapter after a long wait, I know. I just got bogged down with these movies. It doesn't help that I got all sorts of fun ideas for some of the next movies. The next two or so chapters are coming along at a fast clip now that this is finally done, so I'm hoping to have them posted soon. Oh, and did I mention that Sarah has a husband and young son? No? Well, she does.**


End file.
